The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
Ver. 1. The burden of the word of the Lord] That is, a declaration of his mind and counsel for Israel's comfort and his enemies' confusion. To the Israel of God it is onus sine onere, such a burden as the wings are to the bird, a burdenless burden. To the enemies, a burdensome stone, Zechariah 12:3, heavier than the sand of the sea, Job 6:3 .
For Israel] Not against Israel, though Calvin so taketh it; and by Israel understandeth the ten tribes, and those other captives that, loth to leave those houses they had built and those gardens they had planted in Babylon, Jeremiah 29:5, neglected to return to Jerusalem for fear of the Samaritans and other ill neighbours; whose ruin is therefore here foretold by three excellent similitudes, after a stately preamble, drawn, 1. From the power of God, whereby he stretcheth forth the heavens, Job 37:18; Job 26:7, that huge expanse, as a curtain, or as a molten looking glass. 2. From the wisdom of God, in laying the foundation of the earth, and hanging it, by geometry, as we say, in the midst of heaven, like Archimedes' pigeon, equally poised with its own weight.
“ Terra pilae similis, nullo fulcimine nixa,
Acre subiecto tam grave pendet onus. ”
(Ovid. Fast. l. 6.)
3. From the goodness of God,
who formeth the spirit of man within him ] Who hath made us these souls, Isaiah 57:16 , which he doth daily create and infuse into men's bodies; yea, and that alone, without any help of their parents: hence he is called "the Father of spirits," Hebrews 12:9 , and the spirit of a dying man is said to return to God that gave it, Ecclesiastes 12:7 . This last text convinced Augustine (who held sometime, with Origen, that the soul as well as the body was begotten by the parents) far more than the peremptory rashness of Vincentius Victor; who censured boldly the father's unresolvedness (when he doubted concerning the original of a rational soul), and vaunted that he would prove by demonstration that souls are created de novo, by God. Aristotle, Nature's chief secretary, was much puzzled about this point of the soul; which, indeed, cannot fully be conceived of nor defined by man. Only this we can say, that the soul, as it comes from God, so it is like him; viz. one immaterial, immortal, understanding spirit; distinguished into three powers, which all make up one spirit.